The Taste of Ashes
by Sijglind
Summary: Gabriel remembers the pain in his chest when the blade was turned. He remembers his brother's eyes, beautiful, blue and cold as Lucifer himself. And he remembers what he saw last on the inside of his eyelids; hazel eyes and a dimpled smile. Sabriel, character death fix-it, companion piece to another story, slightly AU, contains season 8 spoilers.


**AN**: This is a companion piece to my other story "And when Death came unto Him, He smiled". You should read that one first before you continue if you haven't done so yet.  
I started writing this before we got to know what the third trial is about, so I created my own last trial. And what better to close the gates of hell than bringing one of heaven's most powerful warriors back? Well, just a small AU warning, alright? And as always, the characters don't belong to me.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

* * *

Sam is tired.

So tired.

He is tired of this life, the running and fighting and the never ending stream of things he is supposed to do to rescue the world and save people who don't even know of the things going bump in the night, who don't even know that _Sam _exists.

He has tried.

He has tried so hard to leave all that behind and start a normal life in the year Dean spent in Purgatory, but he should have known that you can't run far enough when your name is Winchester. His family is cursed, he is sure.

Looking back now, averting the Apocalypse and sending Lucifer back to his cage was just the tip of the iceberg that is the extent of Sam's clusterfuck of a life.

Sam hurts.

He hurts _everywhere_, inside and out, his whole body a source of endless pain provided by the trials and his goddamn bad luck and worse decisions.

He is coughing up blood.

Again.

(Dean shoots him quick, concerned glances when he thinks Sam isn't looking, but nearly thirty years of living together has made Sam aware of every movement his brother makes without having to look. It annoys him, because Dean's worry reminds him of the time Sam thought sucking demon blood was a good idea, and he hates to think back.)

They hadn't expected Kevin to call after the young prophet had taken off so quickly and without any trace they could have followed. It's obvious this is about the last trial, and both men are on their way to Kevin after only twenty minutes, the Impala purring around them, eating up the road beneath her.

(Sam wonders if this is the last time he would hear her.)

Sam buys a Snickers when they stop to refill the gas tank.

(He only takes one bite and hands the rest over to his brother, who takes it without comment. Sam doesn't usually eat candy.)

The ritual is ridiculously simple, and Sam asks Kevin two times if he is absolutely sure he got the ingredients right, to which the prophet only reacts with irritation and continues to set the four bowls down in a line on the table, using more force than necessary, so that the porcelain connects with the wood with a loud _thump._ Sam winces and stops asking after that.

There is a ring of chalk lines in front of the table, surrounded by symbols Sam hasn't seen before, and when he looks at them for too long, they start swirling and blurring. He wonders if it's because he has been hacking up blood for the last couple months or if the others experience it as well, but he doesn't ask.

(He guesses his lack of sleep is responsible anyway, no reason to make Dean worry more than he already does.)

Kevin hands him the incantation written down in his handwriting, shaky from sleep-deprivation and the consume of too much caffeine and bad food, when Sam sits down cross-legged in the middle of the ring. He seeks out Dean with his eyes, and doesn't let go for a time when their gazes finally lock. Dean's face is blank, but living in each others pockets for so long makes Sam see the way the muscles in his brother's jaw tense when he clenches his teeth together. There is something like fear hidden beneath Dean's blank expression, and Sam wants to smile at him reassuringly, but his muscles won't do as they're told.

(Maybe it's his nerves, maybe it's Kevin's bad writing, but Sam needs three attempts at reading the incantation out loud. He tells himself it's the handwriting.)

The floor opens beneath him, and Sam falls.

(He falls and falls, and there's a candy wrapper in his pocket.)

Sam lands on soft ground. He doesn't know how long he has fallen or how far, but according to the laws of physics he shouldn't be more than a squishy puddle on the floor. It's strange how he hasn't given up on what he has learned in school, since he's been a hunter for most of his life, and in his line of work you find out pretty fast that the Supernatural isn't interested in the laws of the universe.

He has no idea where he is, apart from in a tunnel, and it could be hell, considering he _fell_, but then again, the whole scenery is lacking the gore and blood and crazy souls who think he's Jesus he got to know on his last visit. Maybe he's dead, and the wholelight at the end of the tunnel thing is true (not that he remembers from the last time he died), since there is in fact a bright light coming from his right, illuminating the seamless walls around him. He decides going towards the light is better than wandering off into the blackness he sees in the other direction. The air gets hotter with every step he takes.

When Sam reaches the opening, he has to squint his eyes shut, it's just too bright, and his lids become an angry red curtain against the light. After some time he finally finds the strength to open his eyes, and if he isn't dead, then he really should be, since he is standing in a tunnel made of liquid metal running down its sides, only stopped from raining down on him by what seems to be magic (because there really is no other word).

Sam walks on.

He doesn't know for how long he walks, since he lost his sense of time when the ground swallowed him, but he thinks it must have been a while.

(He isn't sure, but he thinks he heard Dean call his name when he started to fall, and it makes him wonder how much time went by up there. For all he knows it could be years. Or only seconds. He hopes Dean is alright.)

Sam walks on.

(More than once he considers touching the walls and feel the melted metal running around his fingertips, but he is not suicidal, and if there's a small chance he's not dead yet, then he shouldn't gamble with it.)

The tunnel changes abruptly from liquid to solid and Sam's mind provides the image of a geography lesson he had in Middle School, a picture of the Earth hanging over the black board, a part of it cut out to show the planet's structure. The Inner Core was a white hot ball at the center, surrounded by the liquid Outer Core. Sam remembers that he liked Jules Verne's take on things better.

It takes him another length of time he can't pinpoint to reach the tunnel's end.

(Sam takes a deep breath and holds it.)

The Inner Core is hollow, a giant circular room with a platform at its center held up by nothing with a bridge leading to it. Weren't the walls gleaming with heat, Sam couldn't see them, and it's impressive, breathtaking, stunning. _Insane._

And Sam is not alone.

He can make out two figures on the platform, and he walks towards them, hands unconsciously searching for Ruby's knife, but it isn't where he left it in the waistband of his jeans. Being unarmed feels like being naked, but there is no going back for him, not since he sliced open that Hellhound (not since Azazel came into his nursery and baptized him with demon blood).

Winchesters aren't allowed to run away, and even if they try, they don't get very far.

The two figures turn out to be a naked man and a woman, but everything about them—from the way they move up to their perfect appearance—screams 'supernatural'. They are so beautiful it's unsettling. Sam needs some moments of awkward and rather inappropriate staring to realize they have neither nipples, nor genitals.

Where their eyeballs should be, he sees only light between the woman's and darkness between the man's lids.

"Welcome, Samuel Winchester," the woman says, "to The Forge of Evolution."

"The Forge of Evolution," Sam repeats, and were Dean here, he would smack him upside the head for his nerdiness, and losing track of the important things, namely the origins of the supernatural beings in front of him. But Dean isn't here.

"Yes," the man answers with a blank expression and no further explanation is given. So Sam ventures, "why am I here?"

"You are here to complete your last trial." The woman steps forward to where he is standing at the edge of the platform and extends her delicate hand. When he takes it after some hesitation her skin is warm against his own, and she guides him towards the platform's center, her long, golden hair swaying with every step she takes. Sam's voice is raspy when he asks, "and what is the last trial?"

"To achieve the impossible, Samuel Winchester. You must recreate what has been undone," the man explains, his voice not betraying the severity of his words. "We are Lux and Tenebras, and ordered to help you."

He takes Sam's other hand, and whereas the woman is comfortably warm, he is unpleasantly cold.

"How am I supposed to do that?!"

His question is left unanswered when Lux and Tenebras entwine each others hands, and where they touch one another, cracks open on their skin, fissures thin as a hair spread over their bodies in random patterns, until they are covered in them from head to toe, fragile statures close to destruction.

Then they shatter.

Sam throws his hands up to guard his face when around him blue gleaming shards of glass rain down, forming a pile where Lux and Tenebras stood just moments ago.

(And Sam is alone again.)

He settles down next to the pile of shards, watching their light flicker like that of a dying candle. It doesn't feel right.

In his mind, he sees them shining with power and strength, and oh so beautiful, brighter than the Inner Core, brighter than the sun, blinding and brilliant and _wonderful_.

It's not right that their light merely pulses.

(When he reaches out and touches them, they are warm and smooth beneath his fingertips, vibrating with shattered power that longs to be whole again.)

It's seemingly at random that Sam retrieves two pieces from the pile, fitting them together, and where their edges meet, they melt into one. He's so surprised, the shard drops from his hand, and when it hits the platform, it shatters again with a clang that is so loud it echos off the walls, setting Sam's teeth on edge and making his bones rattle.

"No," Sam breathes, and, "no, no, no, _no!_"

With shaking hands he retrieves the shards that had been one, cradling them with gentle fingers like they're delicate and about to shatter into even smaller pieces if he moves too hastily. They don't fit together again until Sam brushes a finger over the seam and beneath his warm skin, they seal back into one.

He's unreasonably relieved.

After he sets the shard down gingerly, Sam goes to work.

(In his hands, shards fit together piece by piece, and Sam doesn't even know how and why he knows which belong where, but shard by shard, something grows and slowly takes form with the help of his careful hands.)

The glow increases, gains on brightness, but its far from what Sam considers perfect and _right._

(It must be days, months, years that he spends down in the Forge of Evolution, but he wouldn't know, is obsessed with and focused on his task to finish the puzzle in front of him. He _has to finish it_, and it's not important anymore as a trial. It's his life that depends on it now.)

Finally, Sam fits the last piece where it belongs and leans back. He knew it would be beautiful—breathtakingly so. Before him, four pairs of wings lay spread out, one of them huge, with each appendage more than double the size of Sam himself, the other three pairs smaller, only the size of various bird wings. There is no doubt he just pieced angel wings back together. And they are stunning. Sam can't keep his hands off them, lets his fingertips wander over every edge and outline of a feather carved into the glass-like material. Beneath the surface, blue, illuminated smoke is swirling, forming fleeting patterns which tear apart all too quickly. Wherever his fingers rest, the smoke draws towards them.

He spends seemingly hours staring at and worshiping them.

(But they are not right yet.)

Sam is at a loss. He has completed the puzzle, but something still seems to be missing.

Just his luck.

He has tried calling Lux and Tenebras, but apparently their help only went as far as to provide the shards and nothing else. Damn supernatural entities and their tendency to be cryptic. Somewhere, God is laughing at the joke that is Sam's life.

Taking a closer look at the Forge had turned out to be useless as well, since there's nothing but Sam and the wings at his feet—no tools, no anvil, only the platform hovering in the center of a nickel-iron ball that supposedly has the temperature of the sun's surface.

Sam tries anything.

He rolls around, he prays—to God, to Cas, to every Angel he knows by name (apart from the two remaining archangels, obviously)—he tries all the incantations and spells he knows of, he sits down next to the wings and asks them to please be so kind and just do what they are meant to be doing, since he has no fucking idea and there's only so much he can come up with.

He yells, he cries, he threatens and he begs.

The wings refuse to do anything.

(Sam lets his head drop and shoves his hands into his pockets. His fingers close around something, and when he takes it out, it's the candy wrapper from the Snickers bar he bought at the gas station. He doesn't notice he's smiling at it.)

He asks all pagan deities that he knows of for help. He knows it's a lost cause since those usually only react to bloody sacrifices, and the Inner Core seems to be a dead zone for prayers anyway, but Sam is edging on desperate, and at least he can say now he tried.

Smashing the glass wings suddenly seems an attractive outlet for his frustration, but then he would have to start over again, and he came so far already. Anyway, he's not going to give in to a temper tantrum of Lucifer's proportions.

So he sits down again, fingers idly drawing patterns on the wings' sleek surface, the swirling smoke barely registered by his mind.

(When he was a child, Sam sometimes dreamed of flying. In his dreams, he'd spread his wings and jump, and then he was carried over the world, soaring through the sky, cities and landscapes small and unimportant beneath him. It had been so easy in his dreams to escape the motel room and the gnawing emptiness left by the death of a mother he never got to know and the presence of a father who never knew how to be a _dad._)

It's a hunch, a warm feeling in his gut—and the lack of any other options, really—that makes Sam lay down on top of the wings, back resting on the cold surface. He angles himself so that the largest set of wings seems to be sprouting from the space between his shoulder blades, the rest of the pairs following along his spine down to his tailbone, and it feels like it's meant to be, the row of vertebrae fitting perfectly into the groove in the center of each pair of wings.

It feels like the world suddenly clicks into place.

It's one of these things you don't notice until it changes, but up until now, there had been a slight tilt to Sam's world, a nagging lingering at the edge of his mind, a hole in his chest. And now all that is gone, washed away by the warmth spreading through his body from between his shoulder blades on outward, along his spine, his arms and legs, pooling in his stomach. It's pleasure, it's bliss, it's a tingling jolt of electricity rippling through his whole body, and his eyes fall shut.

Sam arches, and with him the wings.

(In tenebras, Gabriel opens his eyes to lux.)

Sam is warm. Sam is safe. Sam is flying.

His eyes are closed, so this must be a dream. He decides to stay in it a little longer.

(He smells honey and something that must be sunshine.)

Gabriel remembers the pain in his chest when the blade was turned. He remembers his brother's eyes, beautiful, blue and cold as Lucifer himself. And he remembers what he saw last on the inside of his eyelids; hazel eyes and a dimpled smile.

After that, there was death, and for an angel, that means _nothing_. No heaven, no hell, no purgatory, no plane of existence, no existing itself.

Gabriel only knows he has been dead because he's cradling Sam Winchester in his arms, and when he delves into the human's memories, he can see what had happened, sees his empty vessel on the ground, outlines of his wings scorched into the floor with black imprints of feathers.

Angels are not supposed to come back.

(God works in mysterious ways, the humans say. They understand Him better than any angel to ever be created.)

Gabriel finds Dean in a dingy motel room with two beds, one untouched. The older Winchester has fallen into a restless sleep, worry lines carved deep into his face, and the dark rings beneath his eyes tell the angel Dean has only given in to sleep because his body wasn't able to stay upright anymore, fear for his lost brother keeping him awake for far too long. Sam huffs when Gabriel lowers him onto the bed, but turns into the pillow without waking up. On the other bed, Dean stirs, close to waking, and the angel brushes his fingers over the creased forehead, coaxing a too-tense body into relaxing.

He stands vigil over the sleeping brothers until their eyes blink open and leaves them to their reunion.

(Sam finds a Snickers bar on his nightstand.)

Gabriel walks the Earth. He drinks beer in Germany, eats sushi in Japan, watches belly dancers in Egypt, stands in Rio de Janeiro's streets during carnival. It's boring.

He goes back to being a Trickster. This time around, his Just Desserts are more creative than ever—although he has to admit, the slow-dancing aliens are still one of his best. Over the whole world he finds victims, works his way through every country, every landscape, plays his tricks in the snow of Siberia and beneath the palms of the Caribbean, yet turns around in Mexico when he sees the chain-link fences of the border.

Kali flails all of her four arms when he runs into her, tells him he's an abomination and impossible. He pities her, because when you have seen your father create worlds out of nothing and children out of stardust, you know nothing is impossible.

(But you don't have to have seen Him work to believe in the impossible. It's enough to know the Winchesters for that.)

One day, Gabriel watches a drug lord being strangled by his coca plants. It's boring, and he snaps up a pack of gummy bears, popping a handful into his mouth to relish the sweetness in the cavern of his mouth he has grown to love so much.

There's nothing.

Half-chewed gummy bears are spat onto the ground in a colorful glob of gelatin.

He leaves Earth.

(The universe is as beautiful as he remembers, but even in the vicinity of a Supernova, he feels cold.)

There's a nebula that catches his attention. Here, where there's beauty everywhere, this particular cloud of dust, hydrogen and helium shouldn't be extraordinary, yet Gabriel can't look away. It's light brown, and the archangel has to look for a time to see the swirls of green dancing inbetween.

(For the first time since he left _the_ _motel room_, Gabriel feels warm.)

Time is unimportant in Outer Space where there's nothing to measure it, but he is pretty sure some has gone by on the marble they call Earth. Gabriel has spent most of it studying the nebula that looks so uninteresting at the first glance, but offers so much more beauty when you take your time to _truly_ look at it. And isn't that the thing with most stuff, he wonders.

Nearly everything is worth a second look at it. First impressions are tricky; you look at a daisy and it's a simple flower, plain next to the explosions of color and patterns tropical flowers offer and yet, when you lean in, you can see a rim of pink on the petals' tips of some of them, or you finally realize how white they are, how pure, and that their core has the color of the sun.

It's true for some humans, too, and you have to see them smile first to understand how gorgeous they are.

(He had to look into hazel eyes to see the kindness hidden in them to understand the abomination is more than what heaven and hell have tried to make him be.)

Gabriel returns to Earth and finds himself in a bar. There's a man, tall, with hazel eyes. They are nice and open, glinting with his broad smile.

Gabriel goes home with him.

(It's not enough, the man isn't tall enough, his shoulders aren't broad enough, his eyes aren't kind enough—but it has to do.)

He finds more men with hazel eyes to lose himself in, and when orgasm crashes over him with a wave of bliss and pleasure, he can almost pretend.

(He still knows it will never be enough.)

Castiel finally finds him. His baby brother looks at him with those baby blue eyes, wide and confused and hopeful, but hurt. To Castiel, Gabriel has abandoned him again, has left him to his grief a second time.

"We thought you were dead," he accuses, and Gabriel laughs, short and dry and without a trace of humor.

"Because I was, little bro. I was."

Castiel's eyes narrow, his head cocked to the side like a puppy's as he tries to sort through the information. Finally, he asks, "Did Father bring you back?"

Gabriel thinks about that, rolls it around in his head and prods it from all sides, and then shrugs, seemingly nonchalant. "He might have helped a bit."

"But that's impossible! Only He can revive us."

"Tell that the Winchesters," the archangel answers and downs his glass of whiskey in one go, ignoring that it tastes of ashes more than anything else.

(Because he remembers the feel of warm hands piecing his grace back together, shard by shard by shard. Sometimes he still thinks he can feel the phantom fingers ghosting over his very being and it makes him shudder with a pleasure he's never felt before.)

Castiel tells him where to find the two brothers. He calls it the 'bat cave' with an expression on his face that says he clearly doesn't understand that reference, and Gabriel smiles softly. He's sure Dean dubbed the Men of Letters bunker like that.

The Winchesters have found a home, their first since Lawrence, one where they each have a room with a real bed, a kitchen with a fridge that is filled to the rim and a stove they can actually cook food on that doesn't come from a can. Not always at least.

Gabriel inspects it when Dean and Sam are out on a hunt. He wanders through the rooms, lets his fingertips trail over the backs of countless old and occult books the secret organization collected or put together over the years. There are some relics too, and Gabriel takes some time to indulge in his memories, to go through when he has seen those old objects the last time. It doesn't make him smile.

He knows it's Sam's room he's standing in because there are no piles of clothes on the floor and the bed is made. And because of the man's scent clinging to everything in it. Sam smells of cheap deodorant and sweat, of blood and musk—because that's something that comes with the job—of gun oil and the Impala's leather seats. He smells of some flowery shampoo that Dean no doubt often teases him for, and of spearmint toothpaste.

He also smells—at least a tiny, tiny bit—of sulfur, even after the trials.

Gabriel presses his face into Sam's pillow and inhales.

The archangel leaves long before the boys come back, everything he's touched back where they'd left it.

(But Sam finds a package of gummy bears on his pillow when he walks into his room, and he smiles.)

There are more men with hazel eyes.

(But Gabriel can't pretend anymore.)

It's two years after _the motel room_ that Gabriel finally knocks on the door of the bunker when the brothers are at home. He's stopped by three or four times after his first visit to check up on them and see what they were hunting this time, but they were never there and he always left without a trace—apart from candy on Sam's bed.

Knocking on doors to demand entrance isn't usually Gabriel's thing, but suddenly appearing in a room with two of the best hunters he's ever met in his long existence doesn't sound that good of an idea, and who knows what the Winchesters have come up with in the time since 'Angels' became a thing on the list of monsters they hunt. Better safe than sorry.

When the door opens, Sam is aiming a gun at his head and Dean baths him with a bucket of holy water. Apparently, the door doesn't have a peephole, because Dean says 'sonuvabitch' as Sam gapes like he's just seen a ghost—and that comparison really is shit, since a) he kinda has, and b) hunters aren't really scared of ghosts.

"Yeah, yeah, I know I'm back and better looking than ever," Gabriel says as he snaps the water from his clothes, and his tone is playfully amused, although his stomach just discovered it likes to do somersaults in the vicinity of Sam Winchester.

From the looks of it, Dean is preparing himself to let out a rush of swearwords and accusations, but then Sam says, "I knew it was you" with that hopeful and sad tone to his voice, and then there's heavy silence.

Gabriel, who always has a comeback ready, is struck speechless. Sam's eyes are a hazel swirl of emotions—he can make out relief and hope and happiness, but also sadness, hurt, anger and disappointment, and nobody should be able to put so much emotion into such a small part of their body, even if they are supposed to be the window to your soul. But Samuel Winchester can, because he managed to do the impossible and resurrected Gabriel, Archangel of the Lord and Judgment and His Messenger by putting back together piece by piece what had been undone.

Dean clears his throat audibly and takes a step to the side, making room for Gabriel. "Uh, come in." The invitation is awkward but genuine, because even though Dean is still mad at the archangel for the whole killing him a hundred times before his brother's eyes thing and taking them on a trip through TV land, but he's man enough to admit that without Gabriel's help and sacrifice, they wouldn't have been able to avert the final battle like they did. Gabriel's eyes drop to the floor and he nods.

(Sam is a warm presence behind him, tall and looming, with searing eyes.)

He throws himself into a chair and produces a cocktail with a snap, sipping the coconut flavored alcohol through a straw while Dean begins his interrogation and Sam remains standing to stare holes into the archangel's profile.

How it comes he's not dead?—He was, but someone put him back together.

So God brought him back.—No, not exactly.

Then there is another way to resurrect angels?—Apparently, but only one, and only once.

So why him? Why not Raphael or any other of the hundreds of angels that died during the Apocalypse and Heaven's civil war?—Because he has the most charm, of course.

Ha, fucking ha.—Stupid questions get stupid answers.

"Why didn't you come to us sooner?" Sam asks the question this time, and there's definitely reproach in his voice.

"Things to do, kiddo. Just Desserts to be served, all that stuff." Gabriel doesn't look at Sam.

"Bullshit! It takes you one second to travel from here to China and you couldn't come by and let us know you're alive?" Sam is leaning in over the table, hands propped on the surface to support him, bringing their faces closer together, and the archangel finally looks at him. Gabriel leans back, heart going a mile a minute, but he wouldn't have been him if it showed on his face. To Sam and Dean, he looks indifferent, with eyes that don't give up anything. "You tried to kill me at least twice, and only because I helped you once doesn't mean it makes up for the personal Groundhog Day and genital herpes. Would it have mattered if I'm alive?"

He continues sipping on his cocktail and nearly chokes when Sam answers, "yes." Gabriel had expected him to say so, but differently, defensively, in a way that would've told him, 'well, it wouldn't have mattered that much, but I want to talk back'. However, Sam sounds genuine. He sounds sad. He sounds like he's spent nights thinking back to the Forge where he pressed his back against the wings and fell unconscious to wake up later in a motel room. Gabriel just stares at Sam, and the hazel eyes are so intense, so full of emotion that it's suffocating, even to a being that doesn't breathe.

"Well," he begins and brings a sarcastic smile to his lips, but it feels all wrong and disgusting. "I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm here now, and I'm alright, and I see you're doing fine, so..."

He snaps his fingers.

(The image of Sam's crestfallen face is there whenever he blinks.)

In an expensive hotel room, Gabriel conjures mountains of sweets and alcohol next to two lovely ladies who don't have hazel eyes. It doesn't work, and he dismisses them with another snap.

(Everything tastes like ashes and every touch feels too cold.)

He gives up after a month.

Sam accidentally sends his beer flying and Dean nearly falls out of his chair when an archangel appears cross-legged on the table, Margarita in hand.

"Jesus! Don't you know how to knock?" Sam exclaims and stands up to collect the shards of glass strewn all over the floor. Gabriel lets them disappear with a snap and presents two new ones straight from Germany.

"I thought with Castiel you've got used to it." He shrugs, somehow not in the least sorry, because Dean's expression when the chair tipped back too far? Priceless.

"We trained it out of him," Dean explains with a glare and tests the beer, swiftly chasing the surprised expression on his face away. Gabriel knew he'd like it.

"Get a bell or something," Sam says when he sits back down, and even though his tone is casual, his eyes say much more.

(It's an olive branch, and Gabriel takes it.)

He shows up more often after that to play tricks on Dean and throw paper balls at Sam when he's caught up in research. Dean tells him to stop pestering them, but he doesn't do anything like throwing holy oil Molotovs, so Gabriel guesses he doesn't mind that much, since the archangel is even helpful sometimes, pointing out things they missed or telling them how to kill certain monsters. The endless supply of German beer and pie is just a plus.

Sometimes, during a break between cases, Sam and Gabriel are alone. Dean usually goes to a bar, hunting skirts instead of things that go bump in the night, and Sam uses that time to read the books of the Men of Letters library he hasn't finished yet. One of those evenings, Gabriel zaps them all away and persuades Sam into watching Star Wars with him. All of the movies. Having nothing else to do since even threatening to fry the archangel in holy oil won't help, Sam gives in reluctantly, but the corners of his mouth are twitching, so Gabriel counts it as a win.

When the Sasquatch sits down on the couch in front of the flat screen Gabriel has helpfully provided, the small archangel lies down with his head in Sam's lap.

"That wasn't part of the deal, Gabe," he remarks and flicks at Gabriel's ear, but the angel only shrugs with one shoulder and counters, "you want your books back or not?"

Sam huffs, defeated, and accepts his fate.

Halfway through the first movie, long fingers tangle through dark blond hair, rubbing over Gabriel's scalp in a soothing rhythm. When he looks up, Sam is still looking at the screen, but there's a soft smile playing on his lips.

(He's felt those fingers before, and the memory makes him shudder pleasantly.)

"Why did you leave all that candy on my nightstand?" Sam asks during the second movie. His fingers are suddenly still, but he doesn't look down, doesn't meet the gaze the archangel is directing at him, hazel eyes glued to the TV.

"What? Didn't like them, Sammykins?" Gabriel pops some popcorn into his mouth, ignoring the fluttering in his stomach.

"That's not the point, Gabe."

There's a long pause, and Gabriel even puts off stuffing himself with sweets while he decides how to answer the question, because if Sam's tone of voice is anything to go by, it's an important one. Apparently, Sam thought he'd never answer, because he flinches when the archangel suddenly speaks up.

"Azazel put his blood in you and killed your mom when you were six months old. Then he killed your girlfriend. Your brother sold his soul for you. Ruby persuaded you into drinking demon blood and killing Lilith. You opened the gates to my brother's cage. Dean stopped trusting you and pushed you away. My brothers called you an abomination. You were, and still are, the devil's true vessel."

"I know what I have done wrong," Sam interrupts him, his hand slipping from Gabriel's head and clenching to a fist at his side, and the archangel sits up and turns to the man next to him, crossing his legs.

"No, you don't." Sam's head whips around to him at the calm tone to his voice, and Gabriel goes on, "because all that? That was all of Heaven and Hell fucking with you. And with your brother, but that's not the point. The point is that you had no decision in all this. You didn't ask for this. Others, with far more power than you have, just decided for you how you had to live your life. You were a pawn on the Apocalypse chess board. The only thing, maybe, is the whole going-after-Lilith thing, but hey, you thought you'd stop the Apocalypse by killing her, so..."

Gabriel shrugs and draws patterns onto the denim of his jeans.

"I thought you'd need something to cheer you up. There's too much self-loathing inside you, Samsquatch.

"And," he adds after he looks up and notices the tears threatening to be shed from the hazel eyes, "chocolate can act as aphrodisiac."

He waggles his eyebrows with a predatory smirk and gets a fist to his arm in return.

(Later, Sam says 'thank you' anyway.)

Gabriel visits his favorite nebula. He doesn't know if he should laugh or cry when he realizes why he likes it so much.

(Sam's phone beeps while they are interrogating a witness to their last case. When he looks at the screen later, it's a text from 'Heaven's most awesome Angel'—and when did Gabe put that in his contact list?—with a photo of a weirdly shaped, brown-greenish cloud. It takes him some time to realize it's a photo taken in Outer Space, and when he does, he nearly chokes on his coffee.)

Sam kisses Gabriel first.

It's heated and almost violent, with teeth clinking and lips clashing against each other, so the archangel dismisses it as something brought along by too much adrenaline in the guys system and the shock of only barely escaping a vamp nest thanks to Gabriel smiting the blood suckers and zapping all three of them out. Thank Dad, Sam thought of calling Gabriel via express prayer—another minute and the brothers would've been vampire snack.

That Sam passes out after their short, albeit passionate kiss is only another proof. So he tucks the giant in and heals his wounds with a brush of his hand, fingertips lingering a bit longer than maybe necessary, but he allows himself that bit of contact, because Sam surely won't remember anything of it when he wakes up.

(His lips still tingle days after.)

Sam remembers, and he's eager to repeat the whole thing as soon as Dean is out of the door the next time. Gabriel appears with a rustle of feathers in the bat cave, convinced something bad has happened, since Sam only sent him a quick prayer that said, 'Gabriel, I need you here. Now.'

The last thing he expected was to be tackled to the ground by an over-sized human, and he doesn't even have half the mind to defend himself when they tumble to the ground. The next thing he feels is Sam's lips on his own, hot and chapped and urgent. At least he remembers to kiss back, and that alone is a small miracle, because the gears in his mind are running hot and his stomach is back to doing somersaults like it's trying to win an Olympic gold medal. He should ask if Sam's sure, if he knows what he's doing, if someone hit him too hard on the head, but then Sam groans, "Gabe," and all of his good intentions go flying out of the window.

With a growl and a snap of his fingers, he zaps them into Sam's bed.

Even though the whole thing started out as urgent, they take their time, discarding their clothes piece by piece while dragging fingers, tongue and mouth over the newly exposed skin of each other, worshiping every curve of muscle, every outline of a bone.

"Mine," Sam breathes against Gabriel's lips when he pushes inside the archangel, hazel eyes holding on to honey colored. "Mine."

(And Gabriel lets him take him, because he's an archangel, he's powerful, he can kill with a thought, and Sam is only a human, a hairless ape—but at the same time he's so much more. He pieced Gabriel back together, touched him deeper than anyone could ever have, caressed his grace and made him whole again. He's done the impossible, and then made an Archangel of the Lord his.)

After they are both spent and cleaned up, Sam cuddles up against Gabriel's side, wrapping one broad, possessive arm around the small archangel's waist, calloused fingertips trailing light circles on sensitive skin. Gabriel sighs contentedly and brushes a kiss to the crown of shaggy, brown hair.

"I felt you," Sam whispers into the comfortable silence between them, and Gabriel hums questioningly. "When I lay down on your wings and completed the trial."

"You felt me carrying you back to the surface?"

"That too, but it's not what I mean." Sam tilts his head back and looks at the angel, kind eyes so full of emotion Gabriel feels like he's getting drunk on it. "I felt _you._ Your sadness, and pain. Your longing for your family and your loneliness. It was overwhelming. But there was also hope. And love. So much love."

Sam shudders with the memory, and Gabriel leans in, ignoring the tears prickling beneath his closed eyelids to capture the human's lips in a kiss.

(Sam doesn't taste of ashes.)


End file.
